THE NAZARÆAN
Luke 4: 16-22, 24-31; 5: 3-8, 10 (“And Jesus...), 12-14 Acts 3: 6; 4: 8-12; 22: 6-8
The Lord Jesus was brought up in Nazareth. He became known as the Nazaraean. It was not a title or recognition of what was attractive in character to men: it was a term of reproach. When He came to Nazareth on this occasion, Luke records that “he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue”. I suppose He was known there. The Lord would be known in the synagogue at Nazareth. In chapter 2 He was in Jerusalem for the passover and He says, “Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” We would take it that the Lord was customarily engaged in His Father’s business. It says here, “and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read”. It would seem that He had done this before, but I would say to you, friend, He had never done it in the same way before. It is remarkable that He did not ask for the book of Esaias: they gave Him the book of Esaias. I suppose the divine hand was in that.
Why did I say that He had not entered into the synagogue in this way before? Because in chapter 3 verses 21 to 22 it says, “and Jesus having been baptised and praying, that the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. Then again, in verse 14 of the chapter we have read, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit ...”. He is a Man anointed by the Spirit. It seems that He went in the power of the Spirit, through Galilee, preaching before He came to Nazareth. I think the Lord is gracious in giving them an opportunity in Nazareth to hear of His works of power which He had done in Capernaum and other places in Galilee.
But He comes into Nazareth where He was brought up. He would be known there. As it says, “and he entered, according to his custom..”. He entered in a distinct manner, a Man anointed by the Spirit of God. It would seem as He stood up to read that He was acquainted with that procedure. They gave Him the book. They must have listened to Him before, but not in the same way. There was something distinctive about Him. You marvel. “And all bore witness to him, and wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth”. I think God was distinguishing Christ. The Spirit of God was distinguishing Christ. If I could speak with reverence of the Lord. I think there was something added. It says He was anointed by the Spirit. There was added power because it says He “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee”, v 14. There was a Man in the power of the Holy Spirit, although a divine Person in His own right. There is evidence of the distinctiveness of the Lord Jesus in His humanity. He says, “he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. He is speaking to a people that were under oppression, under the heel of imperial rule. The whole of the world at that time was under imperial rule, the world in which Christ walked and moved. Here was a Person coming in with deliverance. What was going through their mind?
But then they missed the blessing. It is a serious thing to miss the blessing, dear friend. I trust that we will all get blessing from the word. “And they said, Is not this the son of Joseph?”, the carpenter’s son. What reasoning! The Lord was known as the carpenter’s son. How puny are men in their thoughts! The demonstration of another Man, another kind of humanity, a preaching that would bring about their release, that would bring about healing for men, deliverance, “the acceptable year of the Lord”, God coming in on their behalf, yet almost immediately the devil has scope in their hearts. The word of God discerns between “the thoughts and intents of the heart”. I do not know what is in your heart; you do not know what is in my heart. The word of God discerns, according to Hebrews 4: 12 “the thoughts and intents of the heart”, soul and spirit and thoughts and intents of the heart. The word of God here made apparent what was working in this company of persons.
They could not see past that He was the son of Joseph, the carpenter’s son and they missed the blessing. Prejudice came in. The section I read about Elisha in regard to Naaman brings in their prejudice. The Lord brings Naaman in to show that if I miss the blessing, someone else is coming into blessing. If they were going to miss the blessing of the Physician who was in their presence in Nazareth, someone else was getting the blessing. If Israel missed the blessing in Elias’s day, the widow woman of Sarepta got the blessing. If the lepers in Israel in Naaman’s day missed the blessing, Naaman got the blessing. Oh what a thing it is to be in the presence of the word of God and miss the blessing! We do not want to miss the blessing. We can put up a resistance. We know what that is in ourselves naturally: we put up a resistance to the word. Do not put up a resistance! The “words of grace which were coming out of his mouth” had blessing in mind for man, healing in mind.
Now I come to Peter, and Peter got the blessing. The people of Nazareth missed the blessing. No doubt they spoke of Christ as the Nazaræan, no distinction, nothing in Him that we should desire, no lordliness in Him. The prophetic scriptures bring out the state of our soul: they are a very important section of the Bible. Isaiah 53: 2 says, “He hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him”. There was nothing in Christ that they should desire: to them He was the carpenter’s son. They did not enquire any further and they missed the blessing. It was an opportunity for man to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus, to take account of His demeanour, take account of His words, take account of what went out of His mouth, and yet they missed the blessing. They were really saying “He hath no form nor lordliness ... that we should desire him”.
But Peter is brought into the presence of Christ. He gets the blessing. The Lord Jesus takes an unusual way to reach Peter. He goes into his boat. “He asked him to draw out a little from the land; and he sat down and taught the crowds out of the ship”. But He had someone specific in mind for blessing. The Lord’s word is always specific, dear friend. It is never a bow at a venture. It is drawn specifically. When the Lord spoke to the crowds, He had Simon in mind for blessing. He has you in mind for blessing. You may say, I know Christ as my Saviour. Thank God if you know Him as your Saviour! He still has you in mind for blessing. He has in mind to bless you, bless you further. So He says, “Draw out into the deep water and let down your nets for a haul”. He says this after He had taught the crowds out of the ship. It does not say what He said. Luke is fastening on the specifics, fastening on the fact that the Lord is interested here in one person, Simon. He is of course interested in others too. The scripture brings forward Simon to help us, to show that the Lord is interested in me and interested in you, each one of us. You count for something, friend. You are of value to Christ. He said to Simon, “Draw out into the deep water and let down your nets for a haul. And Simon answering said to him, Master ...”—he is very respectful: “Master” involves one who has authority over others—“having laboured through the whole night we have taken nothing, but at thy word I will let down the net. And having done this, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes. And their net broke ... But Simon Peter, seeing it ...”. What did he see? He saw a great net of fishes. That is what he saw. He had laboured the whole night. He had been out there on the lake of Gennesaret, the sea of Galilee, the whole night, toiling, actually, physically, toiling, and took nothing, never caught a fish. The sea was full of fishes, but he never caught one. Here is a Person who could fill his net full of fishes. Who is this Person? He did not say, the carpenter’s son. Maybe he knew he was the carpenter’s son. He was known in Galilee, and this was in Galilee. I am sure he must have known Jesus as the carpenter’s son, but he did not say, this is the carpenter’s son. He said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”. He gets the blessing. The people of Nazareth missed the blessing. You know, friend, Nazareth at the present time, today, has shrines to where the Lord was brought up. The tourist industry is thriving, but there is no blessing in that. This man, Simon Peter, got the blessing when he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”. Peter was really confessing that he was a leper morally.
That is why I read in the next section as to the leper. Peter was the leper and Jesus met him. The Lord says, “I will; be thou cleansed: and immediately the leprosy departed from him”. He was cleansed. The Lord has had to handle us, dear friend, and cleanse us from our leprosy. I suppose we know that in Scripture leprosy is the evidence, typically, of sin in the flesh, the working of the poison in our system. Sin in the flesh brings about rebellion in us to the will of God. The people of Nazareth really were in that state, in rebellion to the will of God. It was really a leprous state. They did not avail themselves of the Physician who was available to heal their leprosy, but Peter recognised that there was someone there who could control the fishes, someone there who was greater than what He appeared. God was there. Peter recognised that God was there. He had control over the creation.
The curing of leprosy is a divine prerogative so the Lord says to the leper, “Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing as Moses ordained, for a testimony to them”. How gracious He was! “Go, shew thyself to the priest”: I suppose that would be in the temple. Here was a man cleansed from his leprosy. Who cleansed his leprosy? God. It was the evidence that God was there, God was among them. He was more than the carpenter’s son. Jesus the Nazaræan was more than the carpenter’s son. He could heal him of his leprosy. What would the priest think? When the leper is to be cleansed in Leviticus 14, the blood is put on the tip of the right ear and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. What would he think in relation to the cleansing of the leper? What was being enacted was a demonstration of how Jesus the Nazaræan had the power to heal the leper and establish man in all the dignity that belonged to God. Friend, if you have to do with the Lord Jesus regarding your sins and your sin, He would have you to know what cleansing is, what it is to be clear of it. And there is a power He gives you to help you to be established here in the scene where you were once a leper. He does not bring you out of the scene where you were once a leper immediately. He leaves you in that scene, the scene in which you were a sinner, where you walked in sin and obeyed its lusts. He leaves you in that scene but He gives you the power to walk now, no longer as under the bondage of sin, but dignified, in the power of the Holy Spirit, which, in type, the cleansing of the leper involved.
He was anointed with oil. I like that touch in Leviticus 14, “And the remainder of the oil that is in the priest’s hand he shall put upon the head of him that is to be cleansed” (v 18) (pour it over the head of the leper), as if God delighted to anoint the man after the blood had been put upon him. Why, after the blood? Only Christ was anointed with the Spirit in manhood before His death. Every other person is anointed with the Spirit on account of the shed blood of Christ having brought in moral cleansing, cleansing us from our sins. After that we can be anointed with the Spirit and with power. That is a wonderful thing. So He brings this in as to the cleansing of the leper and that is Peter, so one man got the blessing. Have we, each, received the blessing? Wonderful thing to have the blessing!
Peter says in chapter 3 of the Acts, “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this give I to thee: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaræan rise up and walk”. Remarkable that he brings in the Nazaræan! He might have said, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ rise and walk.’ The Lord must have been known as the Nazaræan and Peter was showing that whatever the scorn and reproach was concerning Christ and His crucifixion, there was power in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaræan to heal. So Peter says in chapter 4 before the whole Sanhedrim, the Jewish court, the religious court “If we this day are called upon to answer as to the good deed done to the infirm man, how he has been healed, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaræan, whom ye have crucified”—that must have reached their consciences, “ye”—emphatic—“whom God has raised from among the dead, by him this man stands here before you sound in body”. Friend, the name of a dead man effects nothing. They thought Christ was dead. They did not believe in the resurrection. What this brings out is the power of Jesus the Nazaraean as a living Man out of death, “whom God has raised from among the dead, by him this man stands here before you sound in body”. It was the confirmation and affirmation that Christ was out of death, a living Man! Power is associated with life—“whom God has raised from among the dead”. That is when the change took place. They crucified Him. They thought that was the end. What power was there in the name of a crucified man?—none! But there is power in the name of a Man who is out of death, a living Man, who is available. It is Christ’s power—it is not the power of Peter and John—transmitted from heaven to heal the lame man at the gate of the temple.
God would have us to be those who can walk. Walking with God is a wonderful matter. God came into the garden in the cool of the day and walked in the garden. He wanted man to walk with Him. He did not find man suitable to walk with. Now, through the work of Christ, there are men who can walk with God, women who can walk with God, children who can walk with God, young people who can walk with God. How? Because they have been healed through the power of the name of the Nazaræan. “This man stands here before you sound in body”. What a thing that is to be “sound in body”! Cured from leprosy, cured from the power of sin in the flesh working in your members, and become in subjection to Christ. What a relief! In Nazareth the people missed it. What a thing to think of that! They missed it, missed salvation, so near to them and yet they missed it. They were in the presence of the One who had the authority to heal them and missed it. But we do not want to miss it. Peter says, “He is the stone which has been set at nought by you the builders which is become the corner stone. And salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”. Only one name! Whatever may be said in comparative religions of this world, is of no avail. There is only one name, only one glad tidings and that concerns the name of the Lord Jesus the Nazaræan. There may be reproach attached to it, but there is power attached to it.
In Acts 22, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) says, with respect to his conversion, “There suddenly shone out of heaven a great light round about me. And I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus the Nazaræan, whom thou persecutest”. Remarkable that the Lord should take that name! Of course it is associated with those on the earth who were His—“I am Jesus the Nazaræan, whom thou persecutest”. He was persecuting the saints, and the Lord identifies Himself with them. Paul says in chapter 26, “I indeed myself thought that I ought to do much against the name of Jesus the Nazaræan”, v 9. That was the line he was on, “against the name of Jesus the Nazaræan”. That would be the name expressed in persons. How the Lord identifies Himself with His saints! The Lord says in this chapter, “I am Jesus the Nazaræan”. Paul sought to do much against the name of Jesus the Nazaræan. Do you know something about Jesus the Nazaræan? Have you ever met Him? What an experience in life when you meet Jesus the Nazaræan, not in His flesh and blood condition. You meet Him as the One who is in power. This is Christ in power, no longer in humiliation. “I am Jesus the Nazaraean, whom thou persecutest”. Paul was met by Christ in glory. What a distinction! He did not see Him in His humiliation. The Lord does not say, I am Jesus who am all-powerful or in glory. He says, “I am Jesus the Nazaræan”. It is the same Person. Oh, friend, if you come into submission, you will find that He is the great Physician. He is the Healer. He can heal every state of soul. He can deal with every problem we have, every thought we have, every concern we have. He has not changed. It He met a Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road tonight, He would still say, “I am Jesus the Nazaræan, whom thou persecutest”. He is taking account of persons opposed to His saints, but He is available to His saints. We are in the day of reproach, of shame and suffering and scorn. There will be persons here who feel that. We all feel that in our various circumstances. Some may feel it more than others, the reproach of the Christ. He feels it with you, dear friend. The Lord Jesus feels it with you. “I am Jesus the Nazaræan whom thou persecutest”. If you are persecuted for Christ’s name’s sake, He feels it with you. Thank God if you have known what it is to be healed and then the blessing that He would pour into you. The words of grace that came out of His mouth did not fall to the ground. What He gives in the glad tidings is not spilled on the ground like water that cannot be collected. It finds its entrance into vessels, to our vessel. How blessed He is! He would give us a word that would encourage us in the scene of the testimony. May it be so for His Name’s sake.
EDINBURGH
2nd June 1996